Ja’far was Caliph Harun’s chamberlain. He stood by him in adversity and helped him gain power and – at least initially – helped him governing his vast empire. The story goes that eventually Harun turned against him and Ja’far came to be regarded as a villainous figure conspiring to end his rule.

The Pakistan Tehreek-i-insaaf (PTI) is seen by many as essentially a one-man party, completely dependent on the popularity of Imran Khan. However, the fate of PTI governments - both at the Centre and in the KP and the Punjab - is ultimately contingent on the satisfaction of the assembly members who elected him prime minister and who can remove his government. It is in this context that Imran Khan appears to be walking in the shoes of Caliph Harun, apprehending disloyalty by members of the assemblies – his Ja’far, so to say.

Imran Khan became the prime minister pursuant to the PTI emerging as the largest political party in the National Assembly after the 2018 general election, in which it ended up getting 149 seats - 114 more than it had won in the previous elections.

PTI’s electoral gains were underpinned by a fetching manifesto and aggressive public messaging by Imran Khan. Among other things, it promised that, if elected, the PTI would empower the parliament like never before. It promised that there would be bi-monthly parliamentary sessions in which the parliamentarians would be free – like their British counterparts - to question the prime minister and voice their grievances and concerns.

A number of ‘electables’ who jumped ship and joined the PTI ahead of the 2018 general election were motivated in part by their disgruntlement with the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz’s (PML-N’s) style of governance described as excessively centralized. The clear PML-N majority in the parliament, they complained, was used to rubber stamp decisions that had already been finalised top leaders of the party. Their hope seemed to be that the PTI would cede more power to its MNAs, or at least provide more room for upward mobility as the party hierarchy was less established than in the PML-N.

It’s already more than a thousand and one nights into the PTI’s tenure of creating imaginative stories like Scheherazade and there has been not a single session of Prime Minister’s Questions so far. The attendance record of Imran Khan and his ministers is even more abysmal than PML-N’s, the subject of Khan’s most ardent criticism. Imran Khan has attended less than 10 percent of the parliamentary sittings.

The PTI also seems to have made a U-turn on its commitment to empower the parliament in line with its constitutional role. Instead, on several occasions, its leaders have raised concerns about the parliament’s capacity to discharge its legislative and supervisory role.

The story goes that eventually Harun turned against him and Ja’far came to be regarded as a villainous figure conspiring to end his rule.

The time it takes to pass laws through the parliament has also been criticised as an impediment in the way of achieving rapid transformation of the country’s fortunes. There has also been some talk of transitioning to a presidential system that would concentrate substantially more power into the hands of the chief executive at the expense of the parliament.

Furthermore, a vast majority of the legislation enacted in PTI’s term has been through ordinances, so much so that the PTI’s law making has been referred to as Ordinance Raj, since lawmaking through ordinances can essentially be done by the cabinet without the parliament having any role in it. It seems as though over the one thousand and one nights, Ja’far (our parliament) has been effectively sidelined by the Caliph (prime minister). As per the Constitution, legislation through ordinances is an emergency measure that can only be used when the parliament is not in session and exigent circumstances exist. They are not meant to be a route to circumvent the legislature.

There has also been substantial criticism, both external and from within PTI’s cadres, of the PTI’s propensity to hand over most of the key government roles to special advisers/technocrats, who are not members of the parliament, to manage ministries in place of elected ministers.

The resentment that all this has created amongst the PTI MNAs (and MPAs) has been blamed for the surprising loss of the PTI’s candidate for Senate, Abdul Hafeez Shiekh, who was to be elected by the National Assembly although the government commands majority in the House. Even though Imran Khan subsequently received a vote of confidence, the obvious disgruntlement of the PTI assembly members has been one of the reasons why there has been consistent speculation that the PTI governments on shaky grounds, both at the Centre and in the Punjab.

Talk of ‘forward blocs’ forming within the party refuses to go away, and open criticism has been levelled by some PTI members against policy decisions taken by the government. This is because there is no collective ownership of the PTI policies, as these have never been discussed in parliament as is intended by our constitutional framework.

If the PTI cadre is not kept in the fold, it will not be long before the role of some of them in the plot transitions from being enablers of Imran Khan’s rule to being the conspirators plotting its end. Remember Ja’far.

The writer is a lawyer   practicing in Lahore and can be reached at ali.darugar   @legharianddarugar.com